


Little More than Words

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:29:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24840832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: The letters were never meant to replace what he wanted to say to Noctis in person. But they just started to accumulate as Regis found excuses not to disturb his son as time went on. Soon the letters were less about the words he wanted to leave for his son and more about his regrets for not speaking them.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum & Regis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	Little More than Words

Regis had justified the absences at first; he had always told himself “it’s just for today” and “I’ll have more time tomorrow”. But that tomorrow he ha hoped for never came. No matter what he told himself, r how it was justified, he realized that those hours he had intended to set aside were instead consumed by more work. More later meetings, more pressing documents and treatise that needed his personal attention; more and more excuses that it was just one more late night.

He had started writing the letters a long time ago, when he first realized that the hours spent locked in his study was hours spent away from his new son. Hours missing the moments he had always promised himself that he would be there to see. 

“My dear prince...”

He had wanted them to be words of wisdom. Words of encouragement. 

“My dear boy...”

He had wanted the letters to be everything he wanted to say to his son when he was locked away in yet another meeting or with another important document that needed his attention. 

He started to write out everything he wished he could just say to young Noctis as the years started to take his son away from him and they slipped apart. 

“I never wanted to be like my father...”

“I never meant for this...”

“I wanted to be there for you...”

Regis had started writing them during the late nights, as he filed away the last of the documents that had needed his signature and approval and glanced at the clock to see that he had not only missed dinner but also Noctis’ bedtime by several hours. Each one was folded and sealed, the crisp and perfect folds pressed together in keepsake boxes he had long since stopped counting as he set them aside. 

The keepsake boxes had been a necessity when Noctis was young. The letters were set aside until Noctis was old enough to read them. Until Noctis was old enough to question where his father was. 

He had meant to only have a single box of the letters. To only have one box of words a screen between them. 

But as time marched on, it was harder to and harder to detour so late at night to leave the letters on a desk or nightstand for young eyes in the morning. The quiet Citadel halls were a mire of silence and darkness; dim corridors shrouded in the blankets of night that seemed taboo to disturb with the creaking of heavy doors and heavier steps muffled on thick nursery room carpets. Regis had justified the use of the keepsake boxes by not disturbing his son’s sleep. 

They still had their moments snatched from the hungry maw of the kingdom. There were still dinners and afternoons spent together. There were still bedtime stories when Noctis was young enough to want them, and drinks shared over the vast barrier of Regis desk after a late meeting they had both attended. 

And Regis still penned the words unsaid into those letters. 

“You’ve done so well...”

Carefully folded an sealed with wax. 

“I wanted to tell you, my boy...”

Handled as gently as he could manage as his hand shook and he felt his strength draining away as the Crystal took its due from him. 

“I’m so proud of you.”

Sealed letters slipped together and pressed tight over the years. He almost wondered if the seals on them were their own sort of magic— keeping the words he didn’t know how to say to his son safe. 

As the silence between them grew. 

“I love you.”

Until he could barely manage to keep his kingly persona separate from his dreams of fatherhood. Until every missed moment screamed at him to just have Noctis join him one afternoon, the study doors sealing out the rest of the world instead. His hands had itched to send that invitation— to summon his boy to him, to pour a drink for them to share, to break the seal on those penned words set down on now-yellowing paper. 

Until one day, he knew that the kingdom was going to come crashing down around him. 

And it was too late to let those words loose. It was too late to let the deluge drown them both when it should only be him slipping beneath the waves of unspoken and missed moments. 

But he slipped the last letter written before the agreement to the treaty was signed. 

“My dearest Prince, my boy...”

There would be no time to mitigate this loss, or to stem the tide that this called in when Noctis did read it. 

“I have made so many mistakes in my life, and the greatest of them was not spending my time with you.”

If Noctis did read it. 

“Know that you are more than your destiny, for whatever you are told of it. I regret that I was not there to fight it on your behalf.”

He hoped his son understood. 

“You are more than the line of Lucis that falls now to your shoulders.”

He hoped that his son would forgive him. 

“I know you will walk tall. I wish I could have been by your side to help shoulder your burden.”


End file.
